Carl Panzram

Carl Panzram (June 28, 1891 - September 5, 1930) was an American serial killer who was hanged for murder. He served time under his own name and various aliases in Fresno, California; Rusk, Texas; The Dalles, Oregon; Harrison, Idaho; Butte, Montana; Montana State Reform School in Miles City; Montana State Prison (as "Jeff Davis" #4194 #3194 and "Jefferson Rhodes" #4396); Oregon State Prison ("Jefferson Baldwin" #7390); Bridgeport, Connecticut ("John O'Leary"); Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York ("John O'Leary" #75182^[1]); Clinton Correctional Facility, New York ("John O'Leary" #75182^[1]); and Washington, D.C (Carl Panzram #33379) and Leavenworth, Kansas (Carl Panzram #31614). While incarcerated, Panzram frequently attacked guards and refused to follow their orders. The guards retaliated, subjecting him to beatings and other punishments.^[2]

Panzram was born on June 28, 1892, in East Grand Forks, Minnesota the son of Johann Gottlieb Panzram 1843-1926 and Matilda. He had five other siblings who did not become thieves, but Carl was stealing since he was six years old.^[3]

By his own admission he committed over 22 murders although only five can be confirmed. Likewise glimpses of Panzram criminal activies can be found although they are few and sometimes under his alias:

• On April 7, 1913 under the alias "Jeff Davis," Panzram was arrested in Malta, Montana: "A fellow giving his name as Jeff Davis was arrested Monday morning for disorderly conduct and placed in the county jail. During the day information came from Chinook that he was wanted there for breaking into a dentist's office and stealing a lady's fur lined coat and a tube of gold. A Chinook officer came after Jeff Tuesday. The coat in question was sold in Malta for $5.00 and by the way it looks like the party bought $5.00 worth of experience instead of coat."^[4]

While imprisoned in Oregon State Prison alias "Jeff Baldwin":

• On May 12, 1918, he escaped again by sawing through the bars of his cell,^[5]
• In 1920 he burgled William Howard Taft manison in Connecticut:

^[6]}} as well as Taft's Colt M1911 .45 caliber handgun.^[7] With the stolen money under the alais John O'Leary he bought a yacht Akista, which he used to kill ten sailors. This was stopped only when the AKista was wrecked on New Jersey. In his own words: "Back in New York in the summer of 1920 I think - June or July but maybe August. Five days after I got back broke on the Manchuria I went up to New Haven, Connecticut. There I robbed the home of someone in that place. I got about $40,000 worth of jewelry and some Liberty Bonds. They were signed and registered with the name W.H. Taft and among the jewelry was a watch with his name on it, presented to him by some congress or some senate while he was the Governor General of the Philippine Islands. So I know it was the same man who had given me my three years in the U.S. Military Prison when he was Secretary of War about 1906. Out of this robbery I got about $3,000 in cash and kept some of the stuff, including a .45 Colt Automatic. With that money I bought a yacht - the Akista. Her initials and registry numbers were K.N.B.C., 107,296. On my yacht I had quarters for five people but I was alone for a while. Then I figured it would be a good plan to hire a few sailors to work for me, get them out to my yacht, get them drunk, commit sodomy on them, rob them and then kill them. This I done. Every day or two I would get plenty of booze by robbing other yachts there. The Barbara H was one of them. I robbed her and a dozen or so others around there. I was hitting the booze pretty hard myself at that time. Every day or two I would go to New York and hang around 25 South Street and size up the sailors. Whenever I saw a couple who were about my size and seemed to have money, I would hire them to work on my yacht. I would always promise a big pay and easy work. What they got was something else. I would take them and all their clothes and gear out to my yacht at City Island. There we would wine and dine and when they were drunk enough they would go to bed. When they were asleep I would get my .45 Colt Army Automatic, this I stole from Mr. Taft's home, and blow their brains out. Then I would take a rope and tie a rock on them and put them into my rowboat, row out in the main channel about one mile and drop 'em overboard. They are there yet, ten of 'em. I worked that racket about three weeks. My boat was full of stolen stuff, and the people at City Island were beginning to look queer at me so the next two sailors I hired I kept alive and at work. One was named Delaney and the other was Goodman or Goodwin. The three of us on my boat pulled out one day and went as far as Graves End Bay, New York, where I robbed another yacht. They knew it but I figured on killing them both in a day or two. But we only got as far down the coast as Atlantic City, New Jersey, where my yacht was wrecked, with everything on her lost. The three of us got ashore alive. The other two I paid off and where they went I don't know or care. I was sick at that time and a Dr. Charles McGivern took care of me there at his home for a week or so. Him I gave a few pieces of jewelry of Old Man Taft's. I also gave him the .45 Colt Automatic that I done the killing with. I left his home and went back to Connecticut looking for another $40,000, but I got six months in the can at Bridgeport, Connecticut, instead for burglary. I done that six months and while there I borrowed $100 from my doctor, Charles McGivern. When I got out of the can I went to Philadelphia. There I got my Colt .45 back from the doctor..." ^[8]There is confirmation for some of his account according to a contemporary Newspaper account: October 3, 1920 John O'Leary captain of yacht Akiska along with John Delaney and J. Gilmore had lashed themsleves to the yacht capstan after the Akiska foundered and turned over on its side on the Brigantien Shoals at Atlantic City NJ trying to make shelter in Absecon Inlet; on October 6, 1920 they were rescued by Captain Henry Brown of a fishing smack; O'Leary was in Hospital from Shock and exposure.^[9]

• Carl Panzram Clinton Prison 1923

After being sentenced to death for killing Warnke,in response to offers from death penalty opponents and human rights activists to intervene, Panzram wrote, "The only thanks you and your kind will ever get from me for your efforts on my behalf is that I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it."^[10] On September 5, 1930, Panzram was hanged for murder at Leavenworth prison. When asked if had any last words, he snapped back "Hurry it up you Hoosier Bastard. I could kill ten men while you're fooling around!". He was buried in the prison graveyard marked only by his prison number.

During his last imprisonment a prison guard Henry Lesser gave Panzram a dollar to buy cigarettes; Panzram was so surprised by this one act of kindness that in return he wrote his autobiography—making it quite clear that he did not repent at all of the robberies, murders, arsons, and rapes which he had committed-writing a detailed summary of his crimes and nihilistic philosophy.^[11] It began with a straightforward statement:

In 1938, Karl Menninger wrote Man Against Himself, including writing about Panzram using the pen name of "John Smith", with Panzram Prison Number # 31614. Lesser preserved Panzram's letters and autobiographical manuscript, then spent the next four decades in search of a publisher willing to print the material. Finally, in 1970, it was released under the title Killer: A Journal of Murder. In 1996, the book formed the basis of a film of the same name, starring James Woods as Panzram and Robert Sean Leonard as Lesser. In 1980, Lesser donated Panzram's material to San Diego State University, where they are housed, as the "Carl Panzram papers", in the Malcolm A. Love Library.^[12] In 2012 filmmaker John Borowski released a documentary entitled Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance.